Toxic People Are Just As Deceptive as White Walls

When I was still a tiny thing, my grandmother pointed to a white wall and asked me what colour it was. I was smart, so naturally, I said white.

I was wrong. My grandmother told me there was blue in the shadows. There was yellow in the sunlight. There was grey in the cracks. There was every colour but white on that wall. When I learned to draw, I found out that the brain makes a lot of assumptions about what it sees. You think you know what a face looks like, but you only have to draw the image in your mind to see how many assumptions we make about reality. Learning to draw means tricking your brain into really looking at the world.

Toxic relationships can be a lot like “white” walls. You create your own narrative about them, so you rarely see the truth:

He’s not abusive. You’re just a difficult person to know.

She isn’t manipulating you. You’re just practising kindness.

He isn't cruel. You’re just over-sensitive.

She’s not a bad person. She just had a difficult past.

The wall isn’t blue or grey. The colour of the paint was written right on the can.

You can convince yourself of anything. Thinking the best of others is an evolutionary trait. It helped us survive when we still lived in caves, but positivity doesn’t just protect hominids from mammoths. In the short term, it soothes anxiety and helps us to hold onto the people we love. It’s a lot easier to stay in a relationship if you think well of your partner. We’re wired to think the best of others, even if we have to think the worst of ourselves to do so. How else do you resolve cognitive dissonance?

You think you’re immune.
But you aren’t.

You think you’ve grown out of it, but the next betrayal shows you otherwise.

I’m sorry I sound cynical.

It’s just that I am.

When I first started drawing, I had to do a series of exercises to teach me to really look at what I saw. I had to draw an image upside down. I had to chop it into smaller pieces and draw each one individually. Both exercises forced me to stop trusting my assumptions and actually look at what was in front of me.

I thought I’d learned not to create my own narratives about bad people when I was 25… and then again at 30… and again at 40. I’m 48 now, and I’m still building narratives about bad people. I know all the red flags by rote. I make fewer excuses than I once did, but I still forget the one question that really matters: Does this person make me happy?

If they don’t, why am I making excuses for them? Why am I insisting the wall is white? Why aren’t I really looking at what’s in front of me?

The best indication of a friend’s kindness is the feeling you have in your heart when you’re with them. Does anything else really matter?